11.26.2006

Balloons and Assault Rifles

This has shocked me the past several years. At the annual holiday parade in Beverly there are dozens of vendors pushing carts filled with balloons and stuffed animals. You got everything from Dora the Explorer to Lightning McQueen to Santa Claus. But between the giant inflatable candy canes, and the stuffed Dumbos, are a display of toy assault rifles. Seriously. I'm not talking about little squirt guns or even cap guns. I'm talking three-foot long plastic rifles with scopes, clearly labeled "assault rifles". Unfortunately the photo I snapped doesn't show the wording but trust me, it was there.

What the hell is up with that. What could possibly be the justification for selling toy assault rifles to kids at a holiday parade? They have them every year, so somebody must be buying them. But before I ask "what parent would buy their kid a toy assault rifle at the local Santa Claus parade," I do have to hesitate & picture at least a couple of the parents I have seen picking up their kids at my sons kindergarten class and think. "Oh, yeah, I guess that kind of parent just might." Here you go junior. Go stand behind the mailbox & pretend you are picking off Santa.

12 Comments:

You didn't mention the HO-HO Handcuffs or the Yuletide dagger in the package next to the gun! Isn't it great to be an American, armed to the teeth and ready like any good elf to defend parades, Christmas and the American way!? bizaare.

You won't find me in support of toy guns at a parade. It's true that as Americans we should support the 2nd Amendment as we do the remainder of the US Constitution. However, our right to bear arms is a very serious business and needs to be addressed properly. As a gun owner, I’ve taken much time in teaching my children about the seriousness of guns and their irreversible effects i.e. never point a gun at anything you do not want to destroy. Guns aren’t toys and toys shouldn’t look like guns. I can’t begin to tell you the number of parents I’ve spoken to about “air soft” guns. Parents are buying these for their kids as a type of “tag”. The guns work well and do not hurt too much, but essentially you are teaching your kids to shoot at one another…..very smart!

They sell 'em because there's demand for 'em. It's like spam: it exists only because there's a small minority out there that wants it, that responds to the message by pulling out the old wallet and peeling off some bills.

People, basically, are stupid. So smart businesspeople continue to sell these stupid people stupid stuff.

America was made for cars and guns. It's part of who the people are. As an American mother of a 6 and 2yr. old overseas, I am trying to teach every bit of 'Americana' that I can to my kids. And it's been a lesson for me too. Think about Cartoons in the 40s and 50s, your classic Looney Toons had guns and violence all over them, I never realized until I started watching them with my kids. Cowboy movies are part of the very grain of this country. You see it on every sitcom and movie from the States; from Desperate Housewives to the myriad of coroners office series there are... . We love bodies, blood and death. We've been promoting violence for so long that we're no longer sensitive to how odd it is, how odd we are to promote shooting and violence as normal behavior - until you live away from it. Nobody blows up people the way we do, nobody thinks about cutting up human bodies and how blood gets splattered on the wall the way we do back in Hollywood. We are so isolated in the States, that we, just, don't, get it. Why on earth Mr. "Trustee of truth" would a balanced individual ever want to destroy anything? What right do we have to ever "destroy" anything? Teach children to value all life instead of being selective about which life to pulverize. I can hear it - "My gun, my flag, my rights!" There is so, so much ignorance in the U.S.: the First of the First World Countries that harbors a huge mass of very ignorant, convinced, dangerous people.

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